Just as I was trying to write an introduction to this post another story, this time of how Balotelli hates Manchester, has flashed up on my twitter timeline and as ever it’s accompanied by a smattering of acerbic comment, witticism, thinly veiled or overt racism, resolute defence and nonsensical guff (that’s the bit I usually add). Of course as a United fan my first instinct and one I have embraced wholeheartedly on numerous occasions is to dedicate some time (when I should be working) to adding to the jenga jokes before we all move on to the next stimulus drip fed through our computer screens … unfortunately though for my followers who hang on my every tweet (?!) I’m bored of the Balotelli bashing and it took the back-heel ‘shot’and subsequent substitution to realise why.
I put my bib on.
Mario Balotelli gets right on my nerves. Yes. But not because he can’t put a bib on, or that he hates Manchester, or that he parks his car on double yellow lines, or even because he threw a dart at a youth player. He irritates me because the way he carries himself. His facial expressions and body language are the facial expressions and body language of someone who (and I’ve really tried to think of a better expression) needs taking down a peg or two. Arrogance (or, I suppose, an overt display of supreme confidence) is an extremely effective offensive tool for gaining the upper hand in the masculine arena of football, but displayed inappropriately is repugnant. There is no exact science (well there’s science behind everything, but anyway) as to when, or what age, or how many trophies you have to win to be excused of the occasional showing of said arrogance. But where I’m concerned ‘Super Mario’ has not yet earned that right. He’s cocky. He’s vain. He’s on my nerves. Of course another reason is he plays for City.
It's hard being vain, when you look this good?!
I’ve watched as the tabloid press and primarily United fans have ridiculed Super Mario and I have enjoyed this because in a roundabout way I see it as our collective attempt to (I’m going to use it again), ‘take him down a peg or two’. It’s also our Eric given right as football fans to mock our adversaries; it’s an intrinsic pleasure of supporting any club. But when I look back at the list of indiscretions that have helped formulate the public perception of him, I actually start to feel a certain empathy towards him. Are City really taking responsibility for one of their supposed prized assets? More, is Mancini? The answer to that is a resounding NO (see how I used capitals? That’s a big no, no?)! But I’ll come back to that later…
I’d just quickly like to put a few of Mario’s misdemeanours in a real world context away from the politics of football that decree we can take the piss out of him as much as we jolly well please, with no real thought about what we’re doing:
– Having had football training which required a bib, I can from my own experience of these training sessions say that categorically 99% of people struggle to put on a bib at least once in their lifetime.
"Excuse me, they are double yellow lines" (haters gonna hate)
– As for Balotelli’s reported endless trips to the car pound, well when I had my rust bucket of a car at 19 (granted his car isn’t a rust bucket) and it stopped working, I had to leave it wherever it stopped cos I’m not a mechanic and neither was my dad. What’s Balotelli supposed to do? He’s in a ‘foreign’ country. If my car had broke down when I was younger and I was elsewhere in Europe and I’d had enough money to let someone else sort it out, then that’s what I would have done. As for parking on double yellow lines, well they’re an abomination anyway. 99.9 % of the time they aren’t in place for traffic safety. They are in place to provide a ‘stealth tax’ for the government. Who gives one, where he parks his car? Especially when he get’s abuse around town anyway. Park, get out, seek refuge, done.
– As for buying a motorbike and not being able to ride it. Entirely Carlo Cudicini’s fault.
-He’s allergic to certain types of grass. Paul Scholes is asthmatic but did we have a good chuckle behind his back every time he breathed a bit heavier?
"No, it's not just another daft hair do!"
He didn’t know who Jack Wilshere was once. Do you think Jack Wilshere knows all the young Serie A players?
Finally (for now), his comments on Manchester. Well I think Venice is a mind-numbingly boring over-priced swamp, an opinion I’m sure many people would find abhorrent, but that was my experience of it. Of course, it’s different for Balotelli in his position. But he needs someone, say, the club’s captain to be setting an example … Oh.
There are of course more pertinent issues which exist like throwing a dart at a youth player. I’m not defending it. But are we expected to believe he was acting alone with the dart throwing? Not surrounded by equally knuckle headed team mates, if not egging him on, at the very least not reminding him of how much of a bad idea it was. Come on, he’s a young lad showing off. Besides, we were never really told whether the dart hit, or even got anywhere near it’s ‘target’. It’s no worse than the moronic ‘high jinx’ young men all over the country get up to every day of the week. I was once on a bus and some kids in their late teens were catapulting ball bearings at my head. Where were you all then, moralising, as I almost followed through, huh? I’m not interested in anyone rolling out (this next bit is better said in a whiny voice), “well he’s in a privileged position he should be setting an example to the children looking up to him”. If you are out there allowing your children to grow up with Mario Balotelli as an aspirational role model then turn yourself in to social services right now…Go on! It’s not a joke…RIGHT NOW! Okay, it was a joke…Drown them, they will be better off in the long run.
Moving on … knowing that Balotelli has had problems with his family and that he’s not long since a teenager, who is providing him with any kind of protection? Yeah, sure every now and again we are offered a PR story to soften his image but no one seems to be pre-empting the negative press and acting to actually look after him. Surely any organisation has a duty of care to an employee. Again, yes, I know the tabloid (and other) press have their ways of getting hold of the information but he seems more exposed than most young players. You could argue that he needs to take responsibility for himself, but that’s kind of the point … he quite obviously can’t.
There are actual footballing incidents that have also somewhat tarred Balotelli’s image. He’s been sent of for tantrums and violent conduct, but we have to look no further than our very own Becks for an example of how an angst ridden petulant youngster is no indication of a monster incarnate.
Sorry Mario... #Manchesterisred
And so we arrive at the backheel-shot-offside-onside-substitution debacle and luckily for you soon the whole point of my post. There is no way on this earth, even if Balotelli came out and said it himself (bit far), that you could ever convince me that he was trying to shoot against L.A Galaxy. His body language reacted to a whistle. Mancini has his version. Mancini got all ‘Mancini’ on the touch line, subbed Balotelli off and brought the spot light right down on to the whole farcical non-event. Mancini in that action and in similar moments before is sending a message to the world that Balotelli is at the root of all his problems. Looked how hard my job is with this cretin? How am I supposed to deliver trophies with this idiot in my team? Woe is beautiful me! If Mike Skinner was in some dysfunctional assistant managerial position at City as dreamed up as an aside by the creators of Family Guy, he might have picked this moment to whisper in Mancini’s ‘shell like’, “Dry your eyes mate”.
You're a very naughty boy.
Mancini hasn’t handled Bellamy, Robinho, Adebayor or Tevez with any real success. (But which managers really have or can?) But he has been happy to move them on, or attempt to. Why hasn’t Balotelli been ‘shown the door’ yet? Well this was the point I was coming back too. It seems to me Mancini is happy to use Balotelli as a tool (and he is a massive tool) to perpetuate the myth that he’s in charge. He has so little tangible measure of control in the most pressurised job imaginable, that Balotelli becomes a foil for his ‘status anxiety’.
Alain De Botton sums up what I’m attempting to say much more eloquently than I ever could in his book of the same name.
“It is only ever fear that is to blame. Belittling others is no pass time for those convinced of their own standing. There is terror behind haughtiness. It takes a punishing impression of our own inferiority to leave others feeling that they aren’t good enough for us.”
Mancini is completely out of his depth and to be fair to him this is no reflection on what will quite possibly be a successful managerial career. Any manager would be out of their depth at City right now. The position as manager there is close to untenable. The wheelbarrows full of money bringing about the unprecedented expectations of the fans and the instant gratification sought by the owners. I’m not sure a manager can actuallyoperate in that climate.
Hold me.
As for Balotelli, I personally don’t think he will develop in to the level of player that City chucked money at and hoped he would. Through his natural ability he thinks football is easy and he’s fortunate that for him it is. However, being able to compete at the very top level demands more than just natural ability, it demands more than Mario is capable of on his current trajectory. I’m absolutely sure his development will only continue to be stunted by Mancini and City. He needs support. Mancini for now prefers to have him play the part of the clown.
